I thought I would share my experience creating a customized UBCD <g>. I 1st tried using WinImage under 98SE to extract the files from the .iso and the cygwin port of mkisofs (.exe) v2.01 to create the new iso, but nada. mkisofs (the very latest at the time) kept crashing.

2nd I tried building the .iso under linux, accessing the FAT32 files directly, but nada. The iso built but insert wouldn't run (couldn't find it's own file system). My personal Boot images now work and I can recover from ugly installs (active/boot flags stuck) without using a single floppy, just UBCD. [:^)))

3rd, tried moving the files themselves to the ext2 partition, then mkisofs, nada, no insert (boots still work).

Back to the drawing board <g>, 4th, mounted the original iso as a loopback file, re-extracted the build tree again (simple copy using cp -av) and merged changes from old build tree (boot images, main.scn and custom.scn plus personal sub-dirs, including chmod 555 for all), Bingo! Everything works, best thing since sliced bread!

Hi, I've tried some ways to customize UBCD and burn a new version on CD/DVD. The best choice: Take an ISO-tool like UltraISO (http://www.ultraiso.com) and extract the UBCD-files on harddisk. After changing the content, open the original UBCD-ISO and copy the new files from harddisk into the ISO. Save it, burn the ISO on cd/dvd and boot. No problems yet.

I am with Chrishoff, just open the ISO with WinISO (in my case), extract the files you wish to change, change them, place them back into the ISO, save out the ISO and burn baby burn. Works everytime. Only problem I get is every now and then my ISO gets corrupted. So....just keep a backup.

Now a modified INSERT that would be cool. Hadn't tried that. INSERT is probably one of my most used tools. That and my /var directory that includes the captive-ntfs necessary files from my Windows XP laptop. I have used a few times to rescue NTFS formatted Windows machines. Yuk!

> Now a modified INSERT that would be cool. Hadn't tried that. > INSERT is probably one of my most used tools. That and my > /var directory that includes the captive-ntfs necessary files > from my Windows XP laptop. I have used a few times to rescue > NTFS formatted Windows machines. Yuk!

Regarding captive, I'm not sure if I documented thisbut if you copy ntoskrnl.exe and ntfs.sys to /home/insert/captivethen add /home/insert/captive/ to /home/insert/restore.list,the Configuration->Insert->Save selectable..then take the file saved "insert-config.tar.bz2" and placeon the CDROM/INSERT directory you'll always have the captivefiles necessary.

Lastly, how important would you rate captive? To be honest, I've used NTFS in RO mode, but have yet needed to use the RWabilities of captive. The reason I ask is that the upcomingversion (no date yet), will run the 2.6 kernel. Captive development has been discontinued so as 2.6 progresses,captive looks like it is less likely to work. On the plusside, 2.6 should have better SATA support.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Lastly, how important would you rate captive? To be honest,
I've used NTFS in RO mode, but have yet needed to use the RW
abilities of captive. The reason I ask is that the upcoming
version (no date yet), will run the 2.6 kernel. Captive
development has been discontinued so as 2.6 progresses,
captive looks like it is less likely to work. On the plus
side, 2.6 should have better SATA support.

-- Charles
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You raise an interesting question. The truth is the majority of work that I have done is met with the CD in its current mode. RO access of NTFS is more than sufficient for most things. The captive-ntfs (or any NTFS write capability) is most useful for fixing small issues or for restoring deleted critical files. The UBCD does have the Offline NT Password and Registry Editor on it...so editing the Windows registry can be dealt with by that. I guess it really depends on how trashed the machine is. I would give that up though for the 2.6 kernel features. Although I would keep an older copy of UBCD with the 2.4 kernel running around my toolkit in case I hit an older system.

I will try your INSERT recommendations. My current method of just burning the NT files to a /var directory on the UBCD cd and then mounting the CD and copying the directory into a running INSERT is lame, lame, lame. Just hadn't got to the point where I wanted to tackle dealing with modifying the INSERT install. While on the subject any chance of having an updated INSERT on the cd? Also, last I checked there were still some problems with links within the documents as accessed via menus on INSERT. No big deal for operation just something to correct on next version. I can double check and outline exactly which ones were an issue.

Thanks for your comments. I might look for a bootablefloppy with captive, but considering it doesn't workwith W2K3 server and would have limited device support,probably won't put too much effort into it.

As far as the next release, I can't yet say. It looks likeI'll be collaborating with the Insert author so the 2.6version of Insert will be released faster, plus it willshorten the release time for me to get UBCD Insert out.

You don't need to remaster Insert in order to store yourwindows captive related files. You just need to copythe insert-config.tar.bz2 created from a saved configto the INSERT directory on CDROM. Of even easier,create a insert-config.tar.bz2 containing home/insert/captive/ntoskrnl.exe home/insert/captive/ntfs.sysand inject it (ULtraISO, WinISO, WinImage) to the INSERTdir.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As far as the next release, I can't yet say. It looks like
I'll be collaborating with the Insert author so the 2.6
version of Insert will be released faster, plus it will
shorten the release time for me to get UBCD Insert out.

You don't need to remaster Insert in order to store your
windows captive related files. You just need to copy
the insert-config.tar.bz2 created from a saved config
to the INSERT directory on CDROM. Of even easier,
create a insert-config.tar.bz2 containing
home/insert/captive/ntoskrnl.exe
home/insert/captive/ntfs.sys
and inject it (ULtraISO, WinISO, WinImage) to the INSERT
dir.
>>>>>>>>>

Thanks for our insight into the future of INSERT and UBCD. As to the additional notes on the captive file insertion, I understood from your previous comments that I would not need to remaster INSERT which is cool. Although it might be interesting figuring out how to remaster it just to add a few things. That being said, I already add additional things like windows versions of Nmap and Netcat to the CD as well as PDFs that I might find useful such as the OSSTMM 2.1 from http://www.isecom.org/osstmm/ also add windscp, putty, wingz, winvi and vncviewer. All for that time when you just need a few tools on an existing machine without booting off the UBCD. That might be an interesting forum discussion: What tools do you add to UBCD to enhance its usefulness to you?

Lastly, how important would you rate captive? To be honest, I've used NTFS in RO mode, but have yet needed to use the RWabilities of captive. The reason I ask is that the upcomingversion (no date yet), will run the 2.6 kernel. Captive development has been discontinued so as 2.6 progresses,captive looks like it is less likely to work. On the plusside, 2.6 should have better SATA support.

-- Charles

Hello,

I find captive important.
It's true that mostly I use NTFS in RO mode, but usually the few situations in which I need RW mode are critical.

I think I won't trade captive for kernel 2.6. I can find kernel 2.6 in a lot of linux bootable CD, but captive is rare bird.

BTW, do you know what problems exactly captive does have with kernel 2.6? Maybe I have time to look at them and try to fix them.

> > BTW, do you know what problems exactly captive does have with > kernel 2.6? Maybe I have time to look at them and try to fix them.> > --adrian> >

Adrian:

The problem is that captive requires LUFS, both use kernel sources to compile, and both are no longer in development (for about 1 year now).I periodically search google and the captive mail archives to seeif anyone has been able to get it to compile/work; but no luck.The only posts I've seen have to do with using an RPM captive,through alien, on Ubuntu. There have been many changes in 2.6relating to driver development, which I believe is the fundamentalproblem when compiling the code written for 2.4.

Sorry, to answer specifically your question on exactly whatproblems there are.. tons of make errors... too many to be more explicit.

> > BTW, do you know what problems exactly captive does have with > kernel 2.6? Maybe I have time to look at them and try to fix them.> > --adrian

Adrian:

The problem is that captive requires LUFS, both use kernel sources to compile, and both are no longer in development (for about 1 year now).I periodically search google and the captive mail archives to seeif anyone has been able to get it to compile/work; but no luck.The only posts I've seen have to do with using an RPM captive,through alien, on Ubuntu. There have been many changes in 2.6relating to driver development, which I believe is the fundamentalproblem when compiling the code written for 2.4.

They are changes, but in some cases you can fix thing but just changing structures. (I experienced this with an older vmware tools which woudn't compile on kernel 2.6)

Regarding LUFS, as I can read see on their site one of the last changes (10.30.2003) is " fixed 2.6 build issues".
LUFS is made of a kernel part + user space (daemon) part.
Basically it delegates most of the VFS (kernel virtual file system) calls to a the daemon.
So in the kernel you have a translation interface, only; which shouldn't be hard to make 2.6 comaptible.

IF captive uses only LUFS API, then captive doesn't need any changes.

However nowdays, FUSE (Filesystem In Userspace) might be included in the official kernel 2.6.12 or 2.6.13. FUSE does the same thing as LUFS, but probably has a different API.
Maybe it will be wiser to port captive to work with FUSE, since it will be part of the mainline kernel, and is proven to work with kernel 2.6.

However nowdays, FUSE (Filesystem In Userspace) might be included in the official kernel 2.6.12 or 2.6.13. FUSE does the same thing as LUFS, but probably has a different API.Maybe it will be wiser to port captive to work with FUSE, since it will be part of the mainline kernel, and is proven to work with kernel 2.6.--adrian

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